1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information display for displaying information which is a display object.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is common practice to print information on “paper” as a method of visibly representing the information.
Printing information on paper (a so-called hard copy) has been used and improved for ages so that excellent printing technology is now well established.
However, hard-copied information is firmly fixed on paper, and it is difficult to rewrite, erase or use such information as electronic information.
As regards the display of general display information provided to a PC (Personal Computer) and so on (a so-called soft copy), a display element is becoming increasingly lower-profile. Further, high definition and high contrast are now realized in terms of display performance. In particular, a light and thin display medium called “electronic paper” is under development lately, which can hold natural display with no electricity by a reflection method based on a new display principle. It is anticipated that electronic paper will be capable of realizing a display quality close to a hard copy. For instance, JP2002-169190A discloses a technique relating to such a display medium called electronic paper.
As for information displays including such electronic paper as the display medium, there are various proposals of using the electronic paper instead of conventional display media (nematic liquid crystal for instance) for information displays such as a PDA (Personal Data Assistant).
An information display including electronic paper as the display medium can realize reusability of the information by exploiting characteristics of the soft copy while realizing a conventional display quality close to “paper.” Therefore, it is anticipated that this technology will have high utility value for replacing paper.
However, an information display merely having a display medium of a conventional information display replaced by electronic paper can hardly realize usability and viewability comparable to “paper” or a book comprised of the paper.
To be more specific, it is difficult to realize free use conditions like paper just by extending the idea of a conventional information display because electronic paper has a processing portion for processing and displaying the information and a power supply for driving the electronic paper.
The information display becomes expensive since it has both a processing portion and a power supply and therefore it is difficult for a user to possess multiple information displays. For that reason, it is difficult to refer to multiple display media at the same time as you can do easily with paper.
Furthermore, printing the information on paper allows the user to grasp the information. However, a conventional information display that switches screens cannot be used by a user as if it is “paper.” To be more specific, in the case of displaying information on a conventional information display, the displayed information easily disappears. Therefore, it is not possible to render the information as a corporeal thing and thereby handle it in a sensuously reliable form with a sense of security as in the case of printing on paper.
Thus, it is difficult to use electronic paper instead of paper by merely replacing the display medium portion of a conventional information display with electronic paper.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to realize a convenient information display to replace paper.
To be more precise, an object is to realize an information display capable of handling information in a free usage pattern as with paper and in a reassuring form as with paper at a relatively low cost.